The global nature of the job board industry

The global nature of the job board industry has obvious. From the beginning we’ve had sites around the world filling recruiting needs. But over the past several years, I’ve noticed a shift in the types of activity – from a slew of general job boards to an increasing focus on niche sites and alternatives to the traditional job post and resume site.

Changes of course happen in different ways in different locations. For example, the prevalence of recruiting agencies in the U.K. has meant that they – not direct employers – dominate job board clients lists. The somewhat insular nature of the German recruiting market has meant that employers have been slow to adopt niche sites. And a visit to many of the major Chinese sites – such as 51Job) feels like a trip back the 90s, design-wise, for Western visitors.

But the other thing I’ve noticed is that much of the growth in the job board industry is coming from outside North America. For example, consider Rocket Internet (which wants to become the largest internet platform outside the U.S.) – they are aggressively moving into the African market with their EverJobs site, tackling Ethiopia, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and a number of other nations.

Then there’s Naukri, the top job site in India, which provides a wide range of products aimed at job seekers, including Jobs4U, which is essentially a curated job alert…that you pay for.  The niche job board market is still underdeveloped (in my opinion), although HasJob, the job board for HasGeek, serves the tech community well. HackerEarth also targets tech folks, using the Gild-style model of challenges and tests. Babajob has some interesting features, including the ability for the job seeker to call in and give their profile via phone. Given the back and forth nature of the tech communities in North America and India, I expect to see more Indian-specific tech-oriented sites going forward.

In North America, we’ve seen a fair amount of VC investment over the past 2 years in the job board industry – and the same is true elsewhere. For example, Naseeb Networks, which runs the  job boards Rozee.pk in Pakistan and Mihnati.com in Saudi Arabia, received an injection of $6.53M in Series C funding last spring. Business is good – they are serving 65,000+ employers.

Spain is producing a number of interesting sites beyond the expected general job boards. Tyba reminds me a bit of TheMuse – graphically appealing, with lots of employer-focused content. Then there’s JobAndTalent, which has versions for both Spain and the U.K. In addition to job matching and search, it includes a listing of courses that you can browse – and of course purchase.

I haven’t even talked about the ongoing startup scene in the U.K., the South American market, or (of course) the always-interesting Australian scene. But hopefully, you get the picture – the job board industry is global and growing. And, I might add, fascinating!

[Want to get Job Board Doctor posts via email? Subscribe here.].

[Check out the JobBoardGeek podcast archive!]